Red Sky at Noon (The Moscow Trilogy)

by Simon Sebag Montefiore

  ‘Good work! Medics,’ called Ganakovich.

  Two nurses rushed forward with a stretcher and rolled the body on to it. Then the battalion medic, whom Benya knew well from the Camps as Dr Kapto, knelt beside Polyak, touched his neck, and nodded at Ganakovich.

  ‘Prisoner deceased,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you, doctor,’ Ganakovich replied, glaring at the men. ‘Lesson learned, lesson learned, eh lads?’

  V

  Benya walked alone out to the training arena and leaned on the white railing. The night was rosy and soft, a true soomerki, one of those perfect summer nights when it was so hot that no one could sleep and the air had the texture of creamy velvet; it was a night, thought Benya, for a boulevardier to walk a girl he hopes to kiss. The horizon flashed; the guns boomed, seemingly ever closer; sometimes he heard the roar of engines as tanks detrained at the station and moved towards the front. Somewhere, across the Don, thousands of Russians were fighting for survival; and somewhere very close, Polyak’s body was being dumped into an unmarked grave, dug in this rich black earth. Had they shot the boy pour encourager les autres, to instil discipline in this unreliable crew, Benya wondered, or had the imminent transfer to the front simply terrified Polyak into wounding himself?

  The solitude was a tonic to Benya. One of the torments of the Camps and of the army was the loss of personal space. He craved the luxury of loneliness. That is why he adored the space of the steppes. He often walked out here at night, to smoke, to dream, and often he remembered his daughter who lived with her mother, Benya’s estranged wife. Were they safe in Brussels or Paris or had they made it to Madrid or London? His daughter must be a young woman now – he had not seen her for years … Then there were his parents. Odessa had fallen to Hitler’s allies, the Romanians, who were said to have unleashed such havoc that most of the Jews of the city had been slaughtered in the streets. Could such a thing have happened to them? Or had they escaped eastwards?

  And then he looked up at the stars and Sashenka came to him. Was she even alive? He was overcome with a wave of love; he craved her lips, the stretch of the tendons behind her knees when her legs were around him. If she was reachable out there somewhere, he sent her kisses: ‘I love you!’ he whispered. But though he strained to hear something back, there was no sound, not even an echo. Of all the people in the world whom he loved, he did not know if a single one of them was alive …

  The fear of tomorrow loomed over him. In the meadows beyond, the horses whinnied. There were thousands of them in the paddocks here, Budyonny horses bred by Russia’s first cavalryman, Marshal Budyonny. Silver Socks was there. He peered out towards where she might be and thought he saw the white blaze on her forehead and her white shanks. He walked out further into the darkness and stood at the fence, clopping his tongue, the way the Cossacks did, and the horses came to him. First amongst them was Silver Socks and he felt he was not so alone any more. She put her soft muzzle in his hand and, as he leaned towards her long face, his eyes so close to hers, he found he was weeping: for others, for Polyak, for himself perhaps more. Silver Socks slowly rocked her head and her breath smelled of sweet grass.

  Then he heard a click and he turned, leaving one hand on Silver Socks’s neck. It was Prishchepa lighting a cigarette.

  When it was lit, he offered it to Benya. ‘One for you; now I’ll roll my own.’

  The makhorka was so strong it made Benya cough but he was grateful. He could see the doctor and one of his nurses standing behind Prishchepa; his friends from the Camps at Kolyma. Dr Kapto looked at Benya. ‘Are you OK, dear friend?’ he said, placing his hand on Benya’s arm. ‘We’re all a little unsteady. Easy, now, easy! You’ll be fine.’

  ‘Thank God you’ll be with us,’ said Benya.

  ‘And you, Prishchepa, how are you feeling?’ Kapto asked the Cossack.

  ‘I never think about tomorrow,’ replied Prishchepa sunnily. He had forgotten about Polyak already.

  ‘Tonya, will you be with us?’ Benya asked the nurse, who had worked for Kapto in the clinic in Kolyma.

  ‘Of course, I ride with you,’ she said.

  Tonya always said little. She was, thought Benya, like a light without a bulb, and was overshadowed by the brown skin and long legs of Nyushka, Kapto’s other nurse. ‘We saw them bury him,’ was all Tonya said, and Benya knew she meant Polyak.

  Together they had undergone their training here, far behind the front lines in Russia’s vastness. Gun training, how to fire the basic weaponry, the Moisin–Nagant rifles and the light Degtiarev machine guns … Captain Zhurko had held competitions to assemble and disassemble them in record time. The greatest skill was learning to load a PPSh machine gun at night, taking the lid off the drum, tightening the spring and pushing in the cartridges. Then there were the pistols, Nagants and German Parabellums to master and Degtiarev–Shpagins heavy machine guns. They had nicknames for everything: the PPShs were Papashas, the Degtiarev–Shpagins were Dashkas, the mounted machine guns Tchankas, and the new missiles fired from trucks Katyushas.

  They had been quartered at this army base designed for cavalry and there were so many Cossacks in the penal unit that Melishko, an old cavalryman himself, decided they should be trained as cavalry.

  ‘Even in the age of the tank,’ Melishko told them on their first day, ‘our Red Army theory, developed by Marshal Budyonny under the guidance of the Great Stalin, states cavalry is a powerful strike force, of peerless speed and flexibility, suitable for frontal assaults, screening manoeuvres, reconnaissance, and deep raids behind enemy lines. In ideal conditions such as the Don steppe, cavalry can achieve averages of seven or even ten miles an hour …’

  After that pep talk, their instructor, Sergeant Pantaleimon Churelko, stepped forward. This Don Cossack whom everyone called Panka had a head of thick grey hair worn in a topknot, and a handlebar moustache and whiskers so extravagant and broad that they seemed almost to be a piece of equipment in their own right. Leading them into the paddock, he swished his quirt and looked into the faces of the gathered hundred or so Shtrafniki. Benya stood out. He was one of the oldest – and probably the most delicate.

  Pantaleimon pointed at him. ‘You! Step forward! Has this Zhid ever seen a horse?’

  Benya took a breath; Cossacks were known for their attitude to Jews. ‘Yes, I’ve ridden,’ he replied. ‘But a long time ago …’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ said Panka. ‘First, walk into the meadow and choose a horse. Remember, this is the most important choice of your life. More important than choosing a wife!’

  The moment Benya stepped into the paddock, a horse with a white flash and white feet walked right up to him.

  ‘That’s Silver Socks! She chose you. She’s a smart one. That speaks well for you. Now you’ll learn to ride properly and then to fight,’ Panka said. Benya’s acquaintances, Smiley and Little Mametka, sniggered but Panka spat out his tobacco wad and simply observed: ‘You laugh at the Jew learning to ride? Apart from we Cossacks, no one knows anything. Your tongues have tails but rein them in. Lesson one: your horse is your son and daughter, wife and mistress, priest and commissar. Listen to your horse! Tend her like a wife! Respect her like a mother! Feed her like a daughter! Ever made love to a beautiful woman, Jew? I doubt it.’

  ‘He’s too slight to handle a woman!’ teased ‘Fats’ Strizkaz, a pink barrel of a man with a small patch of moustache and bell-shaped head, who never lost weight, even in Kolyma.

  ‘Or too old,’ chortled another man, Ivanov, who Benya recalled was nicknamed ‘Cut and Run’.

  ‘Enough,’ said Panka. ‘Next one who says such a thing, I’ll thrash him myself.’

  ‘Really?’ sneered Ivanov. ‘You wouldn’t dare!’

  ‘Who spoke?’

  Panka stepped towards Smiley’s gang of Criminals and Benya noticed them slink back an imperceptible inch.

  ‘Don’t cross us,’ piped up Little Mametka in his usual soprano. Benya recognized the tone of the Gulag where the Criminals ruled. ‘Get off o
ur backs, old man.’

  ‘I am not going anywhere,’ Panka replied affably and calmly. ‘Now listen to me or the Germans will get you before you’re even in the saddle. You there, Ivanov, mount your horse. Now!’

  Ivanov hesitated.

  ‘Go on! Let’s see you do it,’ cried Mametka. ‘Anyone can ride a horse!’

  Ivanov put his boot in the stirrup, swung his other leg around and climbed up on to the horse with a triumphant leer.

  ‘Very good,’ said Panka, hands on his hips. The horse reared up and bucked Ivanov off and he landed on his back with a thump. His gang snickered as Panka offered a hand and pulled him up. ‘Mount your horse.’

  ‘Not again!’ said Ivanov.

  ‘That’s an order.’

  ‘He’s frightened,’ piped Mametka.

  ‘All right.’ Ivanov heaved himself up again and sat white-faced on the horse.

  ‘Try to hold on this time,’ said Panka, who made a soft kissing noise – and the horse bucked off Ivanov once more.

  The Criminals whooped as Ivanov thwacked on to the sand where he lay groaning.

  ‘Not so easy, is it?’ said Panka. ‘No wonder they call you Cut and Run!’

  Afterwards Benya realized that Panka could get any horse to throw its rider. He spoke horse language – amongst many others. ‘Who’s next? You’ – and he pointed to Fats Strizkaz.

  ‘Fats Strizkaz was once a Chekist torturer,’ gabbed a voice next to Benya. It was Koshka – ‘the Cat’ – bilious, scurfy and rail-thin, an Uzbek thief who liked telling tales about prisoners. ‘Just saying.’

  ‘Keep your stories to yourself,’ said Benya, who knew that stories were dangerous, that gossip could kill you. Best to say nothing and hear nothing.

  ‘Ivanov once killed a whole family in their beds,’ said Koshka. ‘Just saying.’

  The training was exhausting: reveille at 4 a.m., first duty to groom the horses, then exercises, day after day, loping, cantering, trotting, galloping, learning to charge, ride in squadron. How to saddle and feed the horses, check their fetlocks and hooves. Each man was issued with a Red Army sabre and they were taught how to sharpen it, how to slash and pierce sacks on posts – to simulate human bodies – how to stab on the charge. Benya was a ‘townie’ but he had learned to ride when he’d covered the civil war in Spain and he’d spent many hours on horseback. But this was real riding. He learned quickly, or, as Panka put it, ‘Benya Golden can ride. Perhaps he is a Zhid with a Cossack mother!’

  The horses made their long hours of training a joy, and Benya’s companions, most of whom were Cossacks, who had lived on horseback since childhood, took every chance to show off their skills. As they rode they sang songs of the Don under their breath. Panka arranged contests and soon the Cossacks were vaulting on to their mounts, slipping on to the side of their horses to shoot over their backs, picking up a glove at the gallop, ordering their horses to lie on their sides so that they could rest their rifles on their flanks. ‘Speedy’ Prishchepa could run up, mount his horse, gallop and shoot a bullseye. They lived on horseback. Benya came to love the smell of leather, the jingle of spurs and snaffles, and the sweat of the horses, which enveloped their clothes. Before long, it seemed to him that he had almost become an extension of Silver Socks. At night they played accordions and sang the songs of the Don and Kuban and talked about horses with a mixture of love and cruelty, like men talking about their wives.

  ‘Spend a quarter of your day grooming and loving your mount,’ Panka told Benya as he groomed Silver Socks one evening. ‘Look after your Socks and she’ll look after you. Make her your heroine and she’ll be your saviour. Do you know how to caress a woman?’

  ‘I think I do,’ said Benya.

  ‘Do you know how to beat a woman?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ha, you townies treat your women far too soft. Well, with a horse you need to do both. That’s why we Cossacks are so good with horses and women. But when you want to reassure Socks, don’t pat her on the neck like most fools. She won’t understand that. These horses’ mothers nuzzle their necks right here at the withers when they are foals, so when you’re in the saddle, you roll back the blanket under the saddle and caress her there. That does the trick. And never take Socks for granted or she’ll bring you down to size!’

  ‘Sergeant, you’ve fought in many wars?’

  ‘A few. The Great War against the Kaiser, the Civil War, now this; yes, a few.’

  ‘Are you afraid of war?’

  ‘No! What’s there to be afraid of? When your ride is done, ’tis done. And that’s up to God and your horse.’ Panka chewed on his moustaches, his eyes so small they were almost invisible. ‘Until then it’s always sunny on the Don,’ he said as he walked off, bandy-legged, moulded in the saddle.

  Benya took a growing pride in the beauty of Silver Socks. If her hooves seemed worn or ill-shod or sore, he called in ‘Tufty’ Grishchuk, the farrier with a patchy, crusty face. If she was not herself, he consulted Lampadnik, the battalion vet. He spent hours grooming her chestnut coat till it gleamed, and polishing her accoutrements – the pommel of her saddle and the handle of his sabre. There is, he thought, no tonic for being a ruined man, like the love of a horse. Sometimes he just sat in her stable and let her nuzzle him.

  In the evenings, Melishko allowed them into the village and once the local girls heard they were Shtrafniki, they were even more impressed: ‘You’re bad boys,’ said the girls. Prishchepa, with his face like a cherub and shaven hair growing back like a harvest of gold, was their darling. But when they saw Benya, they giggled. ‘Who’s your dedushka, your granpa?’ they’d ask Prishchepa.

  ‘But I’m only forty-two!’ Benya protested.

  Prishchepa chuckled. ‘He’s a bookworm, he knows nothing about girls!’

  ‘But he can at least perform,’ said Fats Strizkaz, ‘unlike Little Mametka, who’s a girl in disguise. In the Camps, we called him Bette Davis. Like the film star. Big eyes, nasty face – and a bitch!’

  Now, as Benya, Prishchepa, Dr Kapto and Tonya stood at the railings of the paddock, they were joined by a few others, come to stroke their horses before sleep.

  Prishchepa started to sing:

  ‘Fly away, black swallow,

  Fly along the Alazani river,

  Bring us back the news,

  Of the brothers gone to war …’

  ‘Dr Kapto?’ It was the colonel’s adjutant. ‘Colonel Melishko wishes to talk to you. Says it’s about his bunions and piles!’

  Kapto smiled. ‘I’m coming.’

  They looked back towards the buildings. The lights were shining brightly, and the staff would be working into the early hours. A Willys jeep, a Lend-Lease gift from the American allies, drove up and Benya saw senior officers getting out.

  As Kapto walked back to the office, Benya wondered if their mission was settled, because somewhere, he knew, someone was deciding their fate.

  VI

  It was midnight in Moscow but Stalin was still presiding over the meeting in the Little Corner of the Kremlin.

  ‘We must counter-attack on all the southern fronts – relieve the pressure!’ said Stalin, standing at the table with the Chief of Staff General Vasilevsky, looking at the small flags on the map that marked the positions of his armies from the Finnish front in the north to the foothills of the Caucasus in the south – two thousand miles and ten million men. ‘We launch Operation Mercury in forty-eight hours with Operation Pluto launched in twenty-four hours.’ He looked back at the little T-shaped table attached to his desk where Beria, Satinov and Molotov were still sitting, like expectant – if ageing – school boys.

  ‘Operation Mercury is being prepared but there are few divisions available,’ replied Vasilevsky. ‘We’ve formed the available units into the 62nd and 64th Armies, thereby reconstituting the intact forces of the sector into a new Stalingrad Front.’

  ‘That’s all? Bring more forces across the Don to support the 62nd and 64th holding out there. We must exert pr
essure there right now. Attack in force. When can we launch these counter-attacks?’

  ‘We’re rushing in reinforcements to stop the retreat,’ said Vasilevsky patiently. ‘But we are short of tanks, artillery, men.’ Stalin’s constant demands for counter-attacks before adequate preparation had already brought many disasters, but that was the nature of the man. He was relentlessly aggressive.

  ‘There must be more forces in the sector,’ said Stalin. ‘Find them! Who’s available now? Tonight?’

  An aide brought Vasilevsky more papers which he swiftly perused and then reported in his level tone: ‘A moment please.’

  Only he and General Zhukov could say this to Stalin, who had shot so many of his generals in ’37 that the survivors were now understandably cautious and jumpy.

  When Vasilevsky was ready, he cleared his throat: ‘Cashiered troops and criminal volunteers have been training for the last six months on the Don and are ready for combat. Now you have formally created the Shtrafbats, the staff are working at this very minute to deploy them at the front according to your precise orders.’

  ‘They’re already on the Don?’ Stalin sounded surprised.

  ‘They’ve been training at the Budyonny Stud Nine at Vennovsk close to the bridgeheads at the Don Bend.’

  ‘How many men?’

  ‘Five thousand.’

  ‘Better than nothing,’ interjected Satinov. ‘And convicts will fight to the death.’

  Stalin nodded. ‘Can they launch a counter-attack? How quickly can they be deployed and with what units? They have artillery and machine-gun battalions? What strength do we have in tanks?’

  Vasilevsky looked troubled. ‘We will deploy artillery and machine-gun battalions but we are grossly short of tanks, Comrade Stalin. We have only a hundred T-34s in reserve for the entire sector and—’

  ‘No tanks? That is treason.’ Stalin’s voice rose an octave, but when he started again, he was his controlled, soft-spoken self. ‘Then throw these criminals into the fray without tanks. Let them give their lives for the Motherland.’